In April last year, North Korea declared that it would not take part in any further rounds of the Six-Party Talks following the adoption of a U.N. Security Council President’s Statement condemning the North’s launch of a long range missile over Japan. Now, nine months later, Pyongyang has reversed course once again.
In a statement released on Monday, the North announced that it is willing to return to the Six-Party Talks. However, it also specified that a peace agreement should be negotiated at the same time, and that sanctions ought to be removed before anything else.
Regarding this public volte face, there are directly-opposing ideas: either that it was a simple pretext upon which to return to the Six-Party Talks, or that it was a means by which to escape UN sanctions and pressure to denuclearize.
The North’s statement read as follows; “This year, the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, we respectfully propose that the countries who signed the armistice agreement hold a meeting to move from the armistice agreement to a peace agreement.”
The North did not specify which countries it regards as “the countries who signed the armistice agreement,” for although that should imply the U.S., South Korea and China, in the past, North Korea has stubbornly claimed that the relevant parties are in fact only North Korea itself and the U.S.
Nevertheless, North Korea certainly gave the green light to resumption of the Talks, saying that peace agreement negotiations could be carried out within the Six-Party Talks if conditions were right.
However, while this statement can be seen positively, as a way to kick start the Six-Party Talks, it also looks like an obstacle to solving the denuclearization problem, as a South Korean government insider pointed out yesterday.
The North Korean statement stressed, “If the obstacles of distrust and discrimination, called sanctions, are removed, the Six-Party Talks will open… If the countries in charge of the armistice agreement sincerely want peace, security and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, they should take the brave decision to approach the fundamental issue, not waste time only on their own domestic benefits.”
So, obviously, North Korea is aiming to get sanctions removed, and is trying to leverage its return to the Six-Party Talks to bring that about. However, the U.S. government has clearly stated on a number of occasions that no benefits will accrue to North Korea simply by returning to the forum they unilaterally abandoned a year ago.
In any case, whatever the rationale behind North Korea’s tactics, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung Hwan is unimpressed, “North Korea talking about a peace agreement is just a tactic to buy extra time and disperse international attention while developing nuclear weapons. Replacing the armistice agreement with a peace agreement also provides the logic for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea.”
